Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / From Autoimmunity to $20M—How to Build a Business Without Losing Your Health | Amy Lacey

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From Autoimmunity to $20M—How to Build a Business Without Losing Your Health | Amy Lacey · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

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What if the cost of modern success for women isn't failure, it's disconnection?
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Today on Everyday Ancestral, I'm sitting down with Amy Lacey to talk about what happens when
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a woman wired for rhythm, intuition, and connection is pushed into a world built on hustle, pressure,
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and endless performance.
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You built one of the most successful grain-free food brands
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in the country.
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I mean, you launched in many ways the grain-free food movement.
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while also being a mom and a wife.
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Yes.
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So I have been married for 27 years.
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It'll be 28 in March.
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I have three children.
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To tell my story, I got to go back to the beginning of how it even happened.
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We started the cauliflower buzz.
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We were the first cauliflower pizza crust.
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We were gluten-free, grain-free.
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There was nothing on the market like that.
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I mean, the best thing out there was Ooties.
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And if you know Ooties, it's not that great.
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When I grew up, I had a single mom, a dad that was an alcoholic drug addict, wasn't in my life.
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When I got married and we started having children, I was like, I'm going to create traditions and special moments.
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And we're going to have, you know, these family fun nights.
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And the family is going to be the most important thing to me.
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Like my children are going to be the most important thing to me.
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I'm going to just like live vicariously through them a childhood I didn't have.
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So I had set up this family fun night, Friday night, which was pizza.
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like dominoes or whatever we were going to eat that night, round table pizza.
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And then it was
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board games or movies.
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Basically what happened to me is one day I woke up after a Friday family
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fun night and I couldn't get out of bed and I was inflamed and my body was attacking itself
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and I was in so much pain.
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And so fast forward, I went to the doctors, I was diagnosed with lupus
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and Sjogren's.
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So a lot of autoimmune issues, connective tissue disorder.
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They immediately put
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me on shots of steroids, which if you've ever been on steroids or your audience has been on steroids,
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it keeps you awake at night.
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Some prisons use it as a form of punishment.
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Like it makes you crazy.
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And then for the side effect, excuse me, of steroids, they put me on Welbutrin for the
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anxiety to try to calm it down, while Buterin's used to help people quit smoking, but it's also
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an antidepressant.
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And then they put me on Plaquenil for the autoimmune issues, which is
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the drug that everybody was trying to get during COVID.
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And I was kind of bedridden.
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I couldn't
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even walk.
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So when I started living gluten-free, grain-free, my inflammation went away and I
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quickly went off all the medications.
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So fast forward, I wanted to bring back Family Fun Night
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after nine months of being really sick.
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I went online looking for a healthy,
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gluten-free, grain-free pizza crust,
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and I actually found a recipe.
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So I did find a recipe, made it.
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It was a complete flop.
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It was a mess.
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It was yucky.
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And it was using cauliflower.
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And I didn't even eat that vegetable
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because it was white.
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I mean, let's face it,
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it's the last veggie standing on a veggie tray.
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Nobody ever eats it.
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That's true.
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It's white.
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Is it really a veggie?
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and it smells when you cook it.
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So I wasn't a huge fan of it in the beginning,
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but eventually I perfected it, loved it.
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My kids loved it.
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I started helping other people kind of
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becoming a coach without even knowing it, but I was helping other people get off their medications
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and eat gluten-free, grain-free.
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And then one of the clients there said, you know,
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you should take this to farmer's market, teach your kids how to talk to people.
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It'll be fun.
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And Northern California where I lived in Chico, California had a pretty robust farmer's market.
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and I was able to get in there.
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And pretty soon I was in a couple of local grocery stores,
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this Pizza Crest was, and then people were pre-ordering it and I was up all night making
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it before I could ever, you know, even go to farmer's market.
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So the business started that
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way.
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It was really to serve the person I once was, which was a very sick person.
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And it was never meant to become what it did.
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And it literally went viral online.
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Yeah, from a blog, right?
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Yeah, so I had another client who was a single mom whose daughter was severely autistic and she was nonverbal.
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And the doctor actually put her on a low-carb diet for that.
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And, you know, you're well-versed in what sugar can do to you.
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You know, autism rates are just through the roof and, you know, it's attributed to our food industry.
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The doctor put her on a low-carb diet and she knew my pizza crusts were low-carb.
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They just gluten-free, grain-free, makes them low carb.
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So she asked me if I would send her some.
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And of course, she was a single mom.
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So it was near and dear to my heart.
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And I sent them to her for like seven months.
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And one day she called me and asked me to go visit her.
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Her name was Jessie.
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And when I opened the door, she had lost 90 pounds herself because her daughter wouldn't
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eat unless she sat down with her.
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And they were eating other things besides my crust.
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But they were eating like one or two of my crusts a day every single day for seven months.
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and then Kenzie came running up to me and gave me a big hug and said thank you and she was talking
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and she was and Jesse was so excited to share that with me because she was going to school
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that year she was going to have an aid but she was going to get into school which had not happened
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yet fast forward a few months later you know I'm still doing farmer's market but I'm in a couple
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grocery stores and we're online now direct to consumer we have a Shopify store but we're not
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really doing much.
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And the business was starting to suck money.
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My margins were horrific.
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And you
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and I just talked about offline margins and how important they are.
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And I had no business since
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I was not in the food industry yet.
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So I wasn't really I just knew that my bank account was
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getting lower and lower and lower.
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And I'd gone through our savings and we were remodeling our
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house.
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I'd gone through the budget for the garage.
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So we didn't have a garage.
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So I just, you know,
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I'm faith-based.
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And so I got on my hands and knees.
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I've never done that and prayed.
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And I
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was just like, look, I'm helping all kinds of people, primarily diabetics, type 2 diabetics,
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get off of their medications and live a healthier life.
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But I'm not making money.
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And it's eating up.
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And it's starting to cause a problem between my husband and I
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about the finances.
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But God, I don't have the ability to shut it down.
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Like my ego doesn't,
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I don't want to shut it down.
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I love getting the letters and the accolades and the people telling me thank you for for getting me off my medications.
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So you're going to have to shut it down or make it successful because I don't have it in me to do that.
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And that night, no joke, I had a dream that said share Jesse's story.
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So the next day I had one employee, Jimmy, spelled like Jimi Hendrix, but a female,
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very, very into healthy eating and, you know, just anti-sugar, all of that.
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Anyways, I told her about Jesse and I said, I dreamt that we should tell Jesse's story.
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I'm not sure how to tell it, but we should sell it.
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And she said, you better ask Jesse.
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And Jesse was so excited.
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She's like, I'll be the Jesse of cauliflower foods, like the Jared of Subway without the
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perversion.
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And I know this is long, but I need people to understand what happened to know where I was in this space that is dominated at the time, all men, very few women.
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Now we have all kinds of women rising up.
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With that being said, we decided to put Jesse's story on Facebook and it ended up going viral.
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And in January of 2017, in that month, we sold more than we had the entire year of 2016.
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and by the end of January we had done 5.3 million in pizza sales and then by the end of 2018 we did
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21 million and we were the number one pizza crust on Amazon for 16 months straight so here I am
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this stay-at-home mom just trying to heal myself and become a mom again and I had some business
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background I had I had actually worked for Big Pharma I had actually had an online clothing
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store.
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So I understood how to sell online direct to consumer, but I had no Amazon experience.
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I had
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no food experience, zero food experience.
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So I didn't, you know, I knew how to apply for a
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cottage license.
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I didn't know how to find a co-packer.
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So I had to learn all of that.
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And it was a man's world so heavy back then.
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So, so heavy man's world.
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And I remember somebody
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told me to go to fancy food show.
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Actually, if you're a new brand, I don't advise you to go to
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that show as the first show.
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You could go walk it, whatever, if they'll allow you to walk it.
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I don't even know if they do, but that was the first food show we went to.
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And they had this
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event where they were talking to new brands the night before the show started.
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And so Jimmy and
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I went to that.
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And there's always remember this guy, Bob Burke, who later on, you know, Bob,
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later on became on my board.
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But at the time he was, he came up and he started talking to me and
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we started talking about cauliflower.
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He started using all these acronyms that are used in the food
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industry.
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And I didn't know any of them.
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So I said, you know what?
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I'm sorry, Bob, I can't talk to you
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right now.
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I need to use the restroom really bad.
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I've got to go right now.
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And I walked away and
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went in the restroom and I didn't come out for like an hour.
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Like I ditched Jimmy.
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I was so nervous
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because I didn't have a clue of what he was talking about.
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And I didn't want to come across
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ignorant.
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And the next day I was showcasing my products at the show.
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We had a little tiny
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new brands in the new brands pavilion, a little booth, which is basically a table top.
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And that's
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it.
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He was going to come see me.
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And so I'm looking up all those acronyms, trying to figure
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out what he's talking about, but too embarrassed to tell him that I didn't know what he was talking
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about.
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And that's one thing I would say is to anybody starting out, don't be embarrassed.
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Don't
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be shy.
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And especially if you're a woman, like people want to help people in general.
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It doesn't
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matter if you're a woman or a man.
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If I had told Bob, hey, I'm so new to this and I don't understand
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what you're talking about, he would have sat down with me and explained it all.
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But I didn't know I
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was intimidated.
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It was the majority of people in that room were men and it was very intimidating.
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So that was like my first experience in the food industry of just feeling the pressure of being
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in a man's world as a woman coming into an industry that I was just starting to learn about.
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Now looking back at it though, is there a difference in this world of entrepreneurship
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of how women approach it versus men?
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I mean, for so long, it's been such a male patriarchal society,
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a male dominated business acrimon in many ways.
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And I've always felt like instead of women being
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And in their own power, they are expected to be like how a man would show up with his power.
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I think they're different powers.
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Literally, James, I went into therapy over it.
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So if I can fast forward, you know, when people were starting to be interested in my company and acquiring it, and I funded the whole thing myself.
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At that point, we had EBITDA.
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We were the margins.
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I learned about margins and, you know, customer acquisition and all of that.
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and we were doing very, very well.
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And so I had a lot of people coming to me offering
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to invest in the company and or buy the company.
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At that time, it seemed like a venture capitalist
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might be the best option for me.
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I didn't want to sell the company at that time.
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I wanted to
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still be very involved.
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But at that time, there were no, I mean, there's, it's an explosion of
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female venture capitalist now, which I love because the interview process with a female
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venture capitalist is so different than with a male venture capitalist.
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But at the time,
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I was 4% of women to ever get eight figures of an investment.
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Like 4% of women were getting that
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kind of money.
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It just didn't exist.
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My valuation of my company was devalued.
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And I believe because
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I was a woman.
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And here's why I think that from the group that ended up investing in my company.
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When I went out to the boardroom to Boulder, Colorado, there were 19 men in the room and one
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woman and myself.
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So there's one other woman.
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In that situation back then, I was very locked into
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eye contact with her, eye contact with others, but asking her questions.
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She knew nothing about
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when I was talking about they planted her there so I would feel more comfortable.
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I knew it.
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I was just going to ask if she was a plant.
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Yeah.
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So insulting.
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Right.
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So insulting.
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I don't know.
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Maybe women don't think that's insulting.
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I found that extremely
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insulting.
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Yeah.
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I'm sure they didn't mean it to be insulting, but yeah.
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Yeah.
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What do you do,
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though?
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I mean, because those rooms are mostly filled by men.
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I mean, particularly back then.
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Yeah.
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And these men were really, they were just learning about direct-to-consumer.
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and email marketing and that you could actually make money off of your email.
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And they were just
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all grocery store previous.
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Like the brands that they dealt with were really big brands, but just
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grocery.
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So they were taking in a lot of what I was saying, very interested in it, giving me that
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respect and that credibility.
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But when it came down to investing in me, the day that the investment
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was supposed to close, they devalued my company.
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There was zero reason for them to do that except
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for to get a better deal.
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But I really believe it was because I was a woman.
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If I had been a man,
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they would have never, that company with the EBITDA, the margins, the amount of money we
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were bringing in, no debt, no investments, easily should have been a nine-figure valuation.
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and it was cut in half.
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I look back on that and my attorneys and my financial advisors were saying,
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don't do it.
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It's a bad deal.
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It's a bad deal.
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They can't do that to you.
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They're playing you.
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Be strong.
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They're playing you.
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But then I had my family saying, do the deal.
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Do the deal.
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Yeah, it's a lot of money.
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There's the most money any of us have ever gotten combined.
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And I knew I could help move everybody
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out of Northern California if I sold a portion because I was going to take some off the table.
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It felt like it was more in response to you being female versus you being green.
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It felt well, by then I had surrounded myself with the Bob Birks of the world in my business.
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So I had experience in my business.
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You know, I had great people helping me.
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The CEO who ended up selling Rao's, he was helping me.
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I had a lot of great people around me helping me that were experienced that were lifelongers in the food industry.
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And so I do believe just knowing the group I was working with and all of their brands, like, for example, they had another brand, very masculine brand, military brand, Joe Rogan represented them for a while, just a very masculine brand.
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That was the brand that they took previous to me.
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And then here I am.
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And in all of their portfolio, there was only two female brands ever that I know of that they've ever had, myself and one other one, Cool House.
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And she was only involved with them for a very short time.
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I think they have a couple women working for them now, but at the time when I was involved,
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they had no women working for them.
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The plant at that table was one of the co-founder's girlfriends.
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And everyone told me I was being devalued because not for the lack of experience.
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I mean, you know what it's like, James.
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If you're a scrappy person and you're willing to get scrappy and get creative and do whatever
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it takes and no is not an answer, no is next opportunity.
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You just twist that no into something
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that's finally a yes.
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You know how it is if you're that person.
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You're a very valuable founder and
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CEO and entrepreneur because there are those founders that I've met, and I'm not trying to
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say they're all men, but pretty much men at the time that were hiring people to do all that.
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They weren't in the weeds.
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Yeah, I do feel like I was devalued because.
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And if I look at their deals with Kill Cliff and some of the other deals they did, they're huge deals.
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And then I look at Cool House and myself and they were not.
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And we were the only women.
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So, I mean, gosh, if they listen to this podcast, I won't even get in trouble.
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I didn't say their names.
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I think they've changed a lot.
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I think the food industry has changed a lot.
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I mean, look at all the women.
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Look at Lauren, Sweet Lauren's Cookies.
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I was on a panel with her.
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She was doing nothing at the time.
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She's blowing up.
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I'm so excited for her.
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And there's all kinds of women.
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Jamie Kern Lima in the cosmetic industry changed that.
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I'm learning a lot because my current company just launched a skincare line.
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So I'm learning a lot about the skincare industry.
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the food industry as you know has completely transformed since i launched i mean the grocery
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store the frozen aisles there's healthy there's things you can eat there's cereal that's better
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for you there was none of that it was terrible cereal for you i use cereal as an example because
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there's so many options now and at the time there was like nothing and i remember when i was really
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sick i met a dietician and she's like cereal is like giving your kid a candy bar don't eat cereal
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And now there's all kinds of options.
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So I think women have been able to transform the food industry.
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I think they'll transform the cosmetic industry as well because fragrances and all the things that are in cosmetics right now, especially the big brands, and you're putting them on the largest organ in your body, your skin.
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So I think women and men like you,
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I don't want to discredit men,
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women and men like you are changing industries.
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And I think because we have to work harder and be scrappier.
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You're running a different business now, though.
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Yeah.
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How are you running that differently?
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Yeah.
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So when cauliflower took off,
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I had to learn everything, like I said,
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like I had no experience in the food industry.
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So I felt this urge to be everywhere.
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So I was flying to New York all the time.
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I was flying to Austin.
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I was meeting with Whole Foods.
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I was flying to Bentonville.
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We were getting into Walmart.
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And I was just gone all the time.
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And here I have these three kids who are teenagers and then a little one.
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And my husband, who's running, he's a physician.
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He has his own practice.
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He's worked.
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He's gone to school for nine years total to have what he has, not to make money, but to
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change people's lives.
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and that was his dream.
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As a family, we always said we would not have a nanny.
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You know, we had
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the ability to stay at home.
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I had the ability to be a stay-at-home mom, and I didn't want to
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take that for granted.
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So Jim cut back on his practice, and he went part-time, and they used
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to call him Dr.
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Mom, so that one of us was always home.
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But if I could go back, and I won't do it
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in this business, I was gone more than I was home.
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And I felt like I had to.
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I felt like I had to
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hustle that hard to be successful in this industry.
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And now what I'm learning is I didn't
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have to do that.
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I don't have to do that in the current business.
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I don't have to travel as much.
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I don't have to be at every show or every event.
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It's okay.
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Like the business, it may grow slower,
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but it's okay.
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It's important to be at home with your children.
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So my youngest and I, we're close,
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but we're not near as close as I am with the older two.
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He's very close to his dad.
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And that's
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Because in those really important years, I wasn't there and his dad was.
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And I look back on that and I can't change that now.
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He's 17.
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Like we have, we go fishing together.
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We bond, but he will go to his dad for help.
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Whereas the other two used to go to me and I can't ever get that back.
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And it's not worth it.
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It's not worth it.
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No amount of money is worth sacrificing that.
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Either hire somebody you trust that can be there in your place.
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and I know the hustle is real like you've got to hustle so I still have to hustle in what I'm
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currently doing there's got to be balance and I think for women when I'm I'm getting ready to
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speak at the end of the month in San Diego and one of the things I'm going to talk about is balance
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balancing like being a wife being a mom having a business like it is tricky and I think it's
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harder for us to balance than men.
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Definitely.
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Yeah.
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And it's very, very tricky.
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And so my advice
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is no means a lot.
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When you say no, you're saying yes to something else.
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When you say yes,
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you're saying no to something else.
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And so I say no to a lot of shows right now and a lot of events
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so I can be at these events where my son is playing sports or I can be at everything.
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I will not not be at something.
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I've taken red eyes to be at swim meets because I miss so much during cauliflower because
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in my mind, it was like, let me just build this and then I'll sell it and then I'll always
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be home with them.
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But that's not how it works.
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When you get the buzz of entrepreneurship and you change people's lives and you can
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create a product that changes people's lives, when you sell it and it's gone, you mourn the loss of
22:07
that.
22:08
And you see opportunities where you can make a difference in other areas.
22:11
Like the supplement
22:12
area, not to change subjects, but the supplement area is just, excuse my language, but it's a
22:18
show.
22:19
I'm on Amazon, but be very careful about what you buy.
22:22
There's no regulations.
22:23
There's
22:23
nobody out there making sure that we're doing the right things.
22:26
And there are a lot of people doing
22:28
wrong, bad things right now in the supplement industry.
22:30
It kind of reminds me of the beginning
22:32
of the food industry, like the FDA.
22:34
I mean, one thing that I always say is that the FDA allows a
22:39
20% variance on your labels.
22:41
So I could have 20% more sugar or hydrogenated oils, which I don't in
22:45
my products.
22:46
But if I did, I could and not claim it.
22:50
20%?
22:50
20% allowance.
22:53
So you could have 20%
22:56
whatever ingredient you don't like in your product and not claim it.
23:00
You can be 20% off.
23:01
You can look
23:02
it up.
23:02
You can, you can Google it.
23:04
Well, let alone the, the ingredients you don't have to list,
23:07
right?
23:07
The ingredients that are within the ingredients that you don't have to list,
23:10
like natural flavors has other ingredients, but no one lists it.
23:14
Exactly.
23:16
So, and then there's all this thing in the supplement, like we're, we're getting off
23:20
subject, but I think it's really important.
23:22
And I hate to say this, like, I'm not this huge
23:27
feminist.
23:27
I love men.
23:28
I think men are awesome.
23:30
And men have created amazing things in this world.
23:33
But men have also created those little rules.
23:36
And in the supplement industry, I mean, you can get a
23:40
patent on a list of ingredients and not list them and call it something.
23:44
And it's just a joke.
23:49
Like I interviewed with Sean Wells, we did a series and he was like, yeah, if you see that, run because those people are hiding something.
23:58
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24:47
Women are held to a different standard.
24:50
You know, the man who is away from the household for work, who's traveling more than as a father, he doesn't get, you know, slack.
24:59
He doesn't get treated the way a woman who is in that position does.
25:04
Yeah.
25:06
I was treated, I'll just go by the school alone, events where I would miss, you know, my kids are playing sports.
25:14
All three of them played sports.
25:16
I would miss some events during cauliflower.
25:19
This is before I was taking the red eyes to make them.
25:21
And I was isolated from the moms, like the moms that were all there.
25:27
I was treated terrible.
25:29
I can just remember being at food shows where we were talking and men would like we would be in a circle and I might be the only woman there.
25:41
And men would talk to each other, looking at each other in the eyes and not even make eye contact directly at me.
25:49
And it's just whether they were talking about sports or food or what have you.
25:54
It's so different now because you go to a food show now and the supplements and like Expo West, it's all together right now.
26:01
And the supplements and the food industry is still together.
26:03
You go into that show, there's so many female founded brands.
26:07
And so men and female, they're working together better than ever.
26:12
But yeah, back then I just felt like it was really, I really had to fight for my position in that circle and be taken serious.
26:21
You know, when you're interviewing people to buy your company or to invest in your company, you're going through a series of due diligence like no other and a series of interviews.
26:32
And it wasn't just the people I chose.
26:34
I can honestly tell you out of all of them, like 12 of them, there might have been maybe three women in any of those interviews there to interview me at the level that the men were.
26:48
Now that's all changed because there's all these women venture capitalists that have popped up and it's incredible.
26:55
But I think the reason why is because the stat was 4% of women get money and 96% of men get it.
27:03
Like the rest is going to men.
27:04
That's a huge, that's so, that's such a discrepancy there.
27:09
Yeah, that's huge.
27:11
And now I would, if I'd known we were going to talk this subject, I would look at the numbers today.
27:16
I don't know what they are today, but I know they're a lot higher, but they're not high enough.
27:19
Yeah, it's not equal.
27:21
No, it's like 18% now versus 4%.
27:24
And we have the people like Sarah Blakely who paved a path for us and gave us, she was the one.
27:31
She did Spanx, right?
27:32
She did Spanx and she started with $5,000.
27:35
and she had a manufacturing company that was run by men
27:40
and she had to really like say, no, we're doing it this way.
27:45
And she had to prove herself at Nordstrom's
27:47
and places like that.
27:48
She had to like just be really scrappy and prove herself.
27:52
And so she was kind of one of those people
27:54
that I looked up to in the food industry.
27:56
I looked up to her and how she handled things
27:59
and I was like, okay,
28:01
she's kind of paving the path for women.
28:03
and I'd like to think that I'm one of those women too that's paved the path but it is it was hard
28:11
and and I had to go into therapy over it too I can just remember I was on the board and I'd be
28:16
in board meetings and I'd go to talk and just be talked over like I had to fight for the respect
28:23
and I'm not saying all men are like that but it just in the industry it's just it was such a good
28:28
role boy industry.
28:30
And now I don't think it's so much that way, but I think a lot of industries
28:34
are like that.
28:35
You know, Nestle brought me out to speak on their panel.
28:39
They had this big event
28:40
for all their employees.
28:41
And so they asked me to come out on a panel and I was the only female on
28:46
the panel.
28:47
And it was interesting because the questions that were asked to the other panel
28:53
members were pretty, they were good, intellectual, great questions.
29:00
But for me, it was very fluffy,
29:02
very fluffy questions.
29:04
Interesting.
29:06
One of the things though, that was happening during my time,
29:09
and this is in 2019 now, I think the change from 2017, 2019, the food industry was huge.
29:13
And I
29:15
think in a lot of industries, it's really become huge after COVID.
29:19
One of the things that was
29:20
really interesting is when I went to Walmart, when I went to Bentonville, Arkansas, the way that we
29:28
got into Walmart is they came to us.
29:31
They called me and they said, we want you to come out here.
29:34
It wasn't during a time where they were interviewing and looking at brands.
29:37
It wasn't during that time.
29:39
And it was a female that called me and she had just replaced a man in her position.
29:46
She was the
29:46
frozen buyer.
29:47
She just replaced a man that had been there for like 25 years.
29:52
And she was a
29:53
nutritionist and Walmart wanted to up their game and bring in products that were healthier and have
29:59
a healthier section.
30:00
So she was 26 years old.
30:03
She was a registered dietitian.
30:06
She was a nutritionist.
30:08
She had no buying experience.
30:09
It was crazy.
30:10
If you're in the food industry, you know how Walmart
30:12
is you don't want to put your brand in every single Walmart because when Walmart decides
30:16
they're not going to have you like Costco, then you're toast.
30:19
Like you've got inventory out there
30:21
and it could really kill a brand.
30:23
They'll send it back to you and charge you for it.
30:25
Exactly.
30:26
And it can just kill a brand.
30:27
So she was like, I want you every product you have.
30:30
And at the time we had six and I want them in every single Walmart.
30:34
And I was like, yeah,
30:35
okay.
30:36
Yeah.
30:36
Let's do this.
30:37
And then I go back to my advisors who have experience,
30:41
male, Bob and those guys.
30:42
And they're like, no, no, no, no.
30:44
You are not going to put every product
30:45
in every Walmart because the minute they decide that it's not turning and you're going to have
30:51
chargebacks and it's going to kill you.
30:53
It's going to kill your margins.
30:54
It's going to kill
30:54
your EBITDA.
30:55
It's going to kill you.
30:56
So I had to educate her on how a new brand should go into
31:00
Walmart because literally Walmart just said, okay, let's clean up our act and let's get rid of these
31:06
good old boys and start hiring these young females.
31:09
And they had hired like five females
31:11
in different departments.
31:12
It was interesting that some of these bigger companies had decided to,
31:16
that, you know, they needed to bring in some women executives and women buyers.
31:22
And Kellogg's the same thing.
31:24
I do wonder though, because you mentioned that with your new company,
31:29
you're finding more balance.
31:30
Is that balance connected to relationship with your husband,
31:34
to your kids, to your own identity.
31:38
How have you achieved that balance?
31:40
Yeah.
31:41
So when the venture capitalists came in and they bought the majority of my company and I took
31:48
money off the table, a lot of people thought I was just going to like go away and, you know,
31:54
move to Florida, buy my dream home and sail away on the ocean and be happy.
31:59
And that wasn't the
31:59
case because I wanted to still be involved.
32:01
It was like my fourth child.
32:02
It was my baby.
32:03
And so I was part of the negotiations was I wanted to be on the board of directors.
32:10
I was willing to give up the CEO position because I needed to be more of a mom.
32:15
And it was at a point where I felt like I was going to slow the company down with my
32:19
lack of experience.
32:20
So they put a CEO in there that had a lot of experience and I was okay with that.
32:26
And they let me be part of that decision making.
32:28
But once they took control, they fired my team.
32:32
they changed the recipe and they put me on sabbatical and while I was on sabbatical
32:38
they changed my passwords to things like the bank account and things like that now that was a huge
32:48
big fight like big problem and I had to really fight for my position at that time and I'll be
32:55
honest behind the scenes like I could be really stoic and and put up a good argument a lot of
33:01
wisdom, a good argument.
33:03
I don't yell, scream.
33:05
I have strong emotional intelligence.
33:07
And, you know,
33:08
Patrick Leonci wrote a book.
33:10
And one of the things he says when you're hiring people is to have
33:13
hire people with emotional intelligence.
33:15
And it's a fact, it's been studied that women have
33:19
more emotional intelligence than men.
33:21
And I remember when this is before I sold, so I'm kind
33:25
of, I'm kind of going away from what I was going to talk about, but I'll get back there.
33:29
We had one
33:29
man we hired on our team before I sold the company.
33:33
And once we hired him, we started having drama,
33:36
internal drama.
33:38
And I'm not saying it was his fault, but it was like the way that he worked
33:42
with all of us.
33:42
It was so different.
33:43
We all got along so well.
33:45
And sometimes women can be catty,
33:46
but for the most part, women can get along with each other.
33:50
And so going back to the venture
33:51
capitalist, I had to go into therapy.
33:55
I had to go into therapy.
33:56
And one of the things I learned
33:58
about in therapy, well, I learned a few things.
34:01
I learned that I should have dealt with my
34:03
childhood trauma and that's probably why it manifested into autoimmune issues.
34:07
So for all
34:08
of you out there listening, if you have any kind of trauma in your life that you've buried-
34:13
Which we all do.
34:15
You got to deal with it because eventually it will manifest itself into illness.
34:18
It's like
34:19
it's known.
34:20
So when I turned 40, that trauma I experienced as a 12-year-old
34:25
manifested it into lupus and Sjogren's.
34:27
Definitely.
34:28
I know that's how that happened.
34:30
So I could feel the trauma.
34:32
I felt like I was experiencing trauma again.
34:35
Like I was losing my
34:37
fourth child and I was losing control.
34:39
And you know, when you, when you don't have control,
34:43
your emotions can become very angry.
34:45
And, and I didn't like how I was.
34:47
So I, I went into therapy.
34:48
I didn't tell anybody in the company I was in therapy, but it was just to really keep that emotional intelligence in place.
34:57
It's interesting because I can remember, and I won't say his name because he's very well known in the food industry.
35:02
Very well known.
35:03
You will know him.
35:03
He's gone through many exes, but he was also on our board.
35:07
And I remember I just stayed very, very calm.
35:11
And he started, he couldn't handle it.
35:13
He started screaming, yelling, eventually hung up on me.
35:16
And we're friends now, but I just think it's so important to have strong emotional intelligence.
35:22
I also think it's just really important if you're a mom and you have kids to sit down
35:27
with your spouse.
35:28
Now, Jim was never part of the business.
35:31
So like, you know, you look at Poppy, the couple, they were together the whole time
35:36
in that business.
35:37
And I didn't have that.
35:39
And Jim and I talk about it a lot.
35:41
And if we could go back, we probably would have done that together.
35:45
He would have just taken a leave of absence.
35:48
But he was so firm in how hard he had worked to get where he was.
35:51
And he wasn't doing it for the money.
35:53
He was doing it to make a difference in people's lives as well.
35:56
But we would have done it together.
35:59
I think that would have been a big difference for us.
36:01
And we probably would have homeschooled our children and taken them on the road with us
36:04
instead of me being gone all the time.
36:07
I won't be gone now.
36:09
I limit how and I sit down with my family and I say, OK, there's these events.
36:14
and how do they fit in the calendar for our family.
36:16
I will not be gone more than once a month for a few days,
36:20
whereas before I was only home for a few days every month.
36:23
There's really no difference in what I'm doing now
36:26
as far as the success goes than what I was doing then,
36:30
other than me being really gone and busy.
36:34
And then when I'm home, I'm just very present.
36:37
So, and I would say this is really important
36:39
for little kids too.
36:41
I used to with cali val i'd have my computer out while I was playing with them or doing something
36:46
with them or I'd have my phone out I put all of that away and I if I just spend an hour with them
36:53
doing what they want like you know one of my college kids is a gamer still and I will go in
36:59
and like game with him like look at what he's doing spend that time with him my daughter loves
37:04
fashion.
37:05
So I'm, and I put everything away.
37:07
It actually buys me more time and it will with your
37:10
little ones too.
37:12
Like put everything away, do what they want.
37:14
If it's Legos, if it's gaming,
37:16
if whatever it is, do what they want, not what you think they should be doing and connect with
37:22
them in that way.
37:23
And if you have an hour of connection with them like that, it's going to
37:26
buy you so much time and that's what they're going to remember.
37:29
So if you ask my kids back in 2017
37:33
about me, they will say, oh, my mom was gone all the time because she had this pizza business.
37:40
And now if you ask them, they don't even, they don't say, oh, my mom has a soursop business.
37:45
No, my mom, we just skied in Breckenridge.
37:49
My mom was skiing with us.
37:50
You know, my mom,
37:51
and when we went to Breckenridge, it's an annual trip we take every year.
37:56
Many years with
37:56
cauliflower, I was in the lodge making videos, making pizza recipes.
38:02
I wasn't out on the slopes
38:03
with them.
38:04
So even though I was there, I wasn't there is my point.
38:08
So be there and you can in an
38:10
eight hour day or a 10 hour day or whatever your day looks like, just take an hour and devote it
38:16
to them at their level.
38:18
That's the key.
38:18
You got to do what they want to do at their level.
38:22
And
38:23
it makes a big difference.
38:23
And the other thing that I think really helps is having them involved
38:27
in the business.
38:28
So we have a warehouse.
38:30
I send the kids there all the time to package up things
38:33
and they're really involved.
38:34
Of course, they're older, so it's easier.
38:36
But I can think back on
38:37
it when they were little.
38:38
I should have had them helping me make innovation, make different pizzas
38:42
and stuff like that.
38:43
And we didn't.
38:44
We did it for photo shoots.
38:46
We pretended we did that,
38:48
but we weren't actually doing that because innovation, I was quick and I was, you know,
38:52
in a hurry, let's get more products out.
38:53
And I didn't have time to play around in the kitchen
38:55
with the kids.
38:57
I think it's really important to have your family, your whole family involved
39:00
in your business.
39:02
Is entrepreneurship truly something that is ideal for how a woman,
39:08
and not saying that women can't do it, there's a very difference, but saying, is there a sacrifice?
39:14
Is there something in a society that we miss when women are in the warrior role?
39:20
And more and more,
39:21
I'm just hearing so much about how burnt out so many of the women I know who have been in that warrior mode are.
39:28
And yet I don't hear as much of it for the men.
39:31
So it's almost like there is this element of like that they're kind of a little bit more designed for that mode for longevity.
39:38
That's why I say that I wish I would have brought my kids in more and Jim in more because he was Dr.
39:44
Mom and he wasn't.
39:47
He's still not the mom.
39:49
He's not the mom.
39:50
Right.
39:50
It's not the one they want to when they're sick or they're not feeling good.
39:54
They want you.
39:56
Yeah.
39:57
And that is such a hard balance.
39:58
It's such a hard balance.
39:59
And that's why I look at Poppy, for example, because they're so popular right now that they had that big exit and they had their kids with them.
40:09
And it was like a family thing.
40:11
And so, yeah, she was in the limelight.
40:14
She was there and he was behind the scenes, but their kids were also with them.
40:19
and you see that their kids are with them a lot.
40:21
So it's just, and not everyone can do that,
40:25
especially if they're not experienced success yet
40:28
because that costs a lot of money
40:30
to have your kids going with you.
40:31
And to have your partner also focusing on a business
40:34
that may not be profitable at the time.
40:36
But I think that's kind of my point
40:38
is that I started out thinking one way
40:42
and what I'm now hearing you say though,
40:45
that's very moving to me
40:46
is that it's not necessarily about,
40:48
oh, men should be in this role,
40:50
women should be in that role,
40:51
but it's more about like,
40:52
well, how do we choose to be in that role?
40:56
Like, can we include the kids?
40:59
Can we as a family do this?
41:00
Can we, in a sense,
41:02
bring the pieces that may be missing when you're away,
41:06
can we bring those with you?
41:07
Can we bring it so that who you are as a woman
41:11
is being supported?
41:12
Well, not just a woman,
41:13
as a woman and a mother and a wife
41:15
is being supported in your role as a warrior?
41:19
We went viral, so I didn't have a choice.
41:21
It kind of just happened, but I definitely fed,
41:24
I put fuel on the fire for sure.
41:27
I think it's okay to go slower.
41:29
I think it's, I go much slower now.
41:32
It's okay that, you know,
41:34
my current business isn't doing millions right now.
41:37
I know it's going to, it's got the growth.
41:40
It's okay to slow down
41:41
because there are other things that are important to me.
41:44
that it's okay to have a slower business, less money coming in for me.
41:48
And it's easy for me to
41:50
say that because I have, you know, the money that I made from the other business.
41:54
So that's easy for
41:54
me to say, but I look back on it.
41:57
If I could go back, I would have slowed cauliflower down
42:01
so that I could have been more present.
42:03
And I think it's okay to have slow growth in that
42:08
you can still be a mom and still be a wife and you've got to have a lot of self-care.
42:14
And that's the other thing I would say is that I always was in some kind of mastermind.
42:20
I always
42:20
had some kind of coach because you've got to have self-care.
42:24
And you know this, like whether you're
42:26
a man or a woman, your business is only going to grow at the pace that you're growing internally.
42:30
And so for us, I think it's really important if you're balancing that role of motherhood, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, founder, whatever the business is, you better have a lot of self-care.
42:46
You better take a lot of time for whatever that looks like for you, journaling, massages, whatever, eating right, exercising.
42:55
That's another thing that I had a full circle moment.
42:59
I got sick again after like I I worked myself to getting sick again here I am creating a product
43:06
to help me serve the person I once was and I just made myself sick again through stress and
43:12
overworking yeah and it was just like this full circle moment this hamster that couldn't get off
43:17
the wheel like I just for the purposes of why I created the brand to begin with I allowed it to
43:23
take over.
43:24
I look back on then and I wasn't, but now I am.
43:27
I'm always in some kind of a mastermind
43:30
that's pouring into me or with a coach that's pouring into me so that I know they can help me.
43:37
And one of the things they'll say to me is, what is the number one thing you need help with?
43:41
And I
43:41
will say balance, work-life balance, time management.
43:47
It used to be my health, but now time
43:49
And health is right up there too with time.
43:52
But time is so important to me.
43:56
So I think giving yourself permission to go a little slower and not look at other people
44:01
and say, oh, I got to be like that person.
44:03
Or I got to be like that brand.
44:05
It's okay.
44:05
It's going to happen.
44:06
If I look at the brands that are still around that are really successful, they have longevity.
44:13
Look at Califower.
44:14
It's not, it doesn't exist anymore.
44:16
and you know I had sold it in 2022 the rest of it and by the end of 2023 they shut it down
44:23
it grew so fast so quickly and I think these longevity brands it allows for more balance
44:31
and I think they last longer too like they have more of a chance of being successful
44:36
I know that this is probably not answering it the way like we're not getting into the weeds of what
44:40
you're trying to get into.
44:42
But I just want to be really practical about what has helped me and the
44:46
differences from then and to now.
44:49
Like the brand I have now is going very slow.
44:51
I know it's going
44:52
to be around forever.
44:53
I know it's not going anywhere.
44:55
And it's okay that I can go a little
44:58
slower.
44:59
I don't have the same before I can remember looking at other brands going, Oh, I got to be
45:04
like them like nut pods.
45:06
I got to be like her.
45:07
Well, Madeline had been around for a long time,
45:09
But I wanted her success instantly.
45:12
Just like take a step back.
45:14
Enjoy the moment.
45:16
Be really present in the moment.
45:18
Take it one day at a time.
45:20
Lean on other people.
45:21
Don't think that you're the only one that can do everything.
45:25
For me, my faith is number one.
45:27
My family is number two.
45:29
And I look at it back then.
45:31
Cauliflower is number one.
45:33
My family was somewhere way down like number five.
45:36
That is a really important piece to all this and to this whole talk is, you know, one of the most ancestral things we can do is be present.
45:45
But our modern society really pushes us into comparison mode, into judgment mode, whether it's to other people or towards ourself, right?
45:52
Because you're being inundated with information that you would never ancestrally know.
45:57
I would never know what a thousand people think of me, ever, of a photo of me or whatever it is.
46:02
You know, I would never hear of so much world news.
46:05
I would never hear of so many opinions based off of something that I share, right?
46:11
Our nervous systems are constantly being taxed.
46:14
Our presence is constantly being challenged.
46:18
and I think tethering yourself from what I'm hearing you say tethering yourself to family
46:24
and faith is so crucial to then being able to go back out and continue on your path of mission and
46:34
heart with what you believe the world needs you know but it starts and ends with family and faith
46:41
you have to be grounded in something to then be able to go out and fight the good fight
46:46
Absolutely.
46:47
And it's what's going to fuel you to keep going.
46:50
But if you're on comparison mode and you're on social media and you're spending your time and energy doing those things, thinking that you have to work harder, smarter, faster, whatever you're thinking and sacrificing what's really important, then you're going to be like me.
47:07
You're going to wake up one day and your youngest kid doesn't go to you and you're sick again.
47:13
And yeah, you got millions in your pocket.
47:15
But what good does that do if you don't have your family or your health?
47:18
Trust me.
47:19
Like I think I used to think all the time, oh, if I had this amount of money, life would
47:23
be so much easier.
47:24
No, not at all.
47:26
What makes it easier is just being grounded, slow down, appreciate what you have, spend
47:32
the time with the things and the people that are important because the success will follow
47:37
that.
47:38
It will follow that.
47:39
It might not be as fast, but it will follow that.
47:41
And again, fast in our industry is not good.
47:46
Well, I have a final question I always ask my guests.
47:50
So if you could wave a magic wand and bring back one ancestral practice, what would it be and why?
47:58
I really, I don't know if this is going to be a good answer or not.
48:03
This is going way back.
48:05
And I think I'm thinking of Rob Wolf and the caveman and hunting and gathering.
48:10
But I just wish we had meat and food that was as clean as back then, like hundreds of years ago.
48:21
We have so many preservatives and like chicken.
48:25
You can't buy a chicken and it tastes good anymore.
48:28
It's rubbery.
48:29
I just want our food industry to clean up.
48:32
Like there's nothing better than catching your own fish, cleaning it and eating it.
48:36
But I want us to go back to the hunters and the gatherers.
48:41
I mean, that's going way back.
48:43
And I don't know if that's answering it the way you want me to answer it.
48:46
No, I want you to answer it however you want.
48:49
I like to just know that I'm a big meat eater.
48:54
And if I'm going to kill a cow, I want it to be eating the right things.
49:00
And I don't want to eat a chicken that's loaded with steroids.
49:03
I want us to stop creating food for a fast buck and start creating it for our health.
49:12
Because there's so much disease out there that's coming out because of the way we're eating.
49:18
And we need to go back to the basics.
49:21
Like I look at my great grandmother who lived to be 102.
49:24
And I remember once I asked her, Grandma Birdie, how is it that you live so?
49:30
And she said, I don't drink that sody.
49:32
That's what she called it.
49:33
I don't drink sody.
49:35
I don't smoke.
49:37
I don't drink alcohol.
49:39
I grow my own fruits and vegetables and I don't put any of those pesties on them.
49:44
She's called pesties.
49:46
Sodies and pesties.
49:47
She raised her own chickens.
49:48
She grew her own garden.
49:49
She plucked her chickens.
49:50
She ate it.
49:52
She like went back to the basics.
49:53
She made her own bread.
49:55
and gosh we can't like you can't even make your own bread and get decent flour unless you're in
50:01
Italy like I want us to clean up our industry so that we can all be better for it I love it yeah
50:10
well I so appreciate you taking your time I know you're so busy and I do want to just quickly share
50:16
too that you know very much what Bob was to you or just people that had already been in the industry
50:23
and how they kind of helped to lead you.
50:27
I mean, you were so kind and generous in that way to me
50:30
when we first met at that trade show.
50:32
And I just, you really stand out
50:36
as someone who really walks for talk about that.
50:39
You're not jaded about it.
50:40
You're not above, you know, anyone else.
50:43
It's like, you're right there
50:45
and you were just so accessible
50:46
and so generous and so kind.
50:49
And I'm really grateful to that
50:51
because I, just like you, I didn't, you know, when I started, I didn't know what I was doing.
50:56
You know, I was a...
50:57
I'm here for you for your phenomenal products.
51:00
Oh, thank you.
51:01
And I loved putting them on our pizza.
51:04
I have your little jars still,
51:06
and I have them here.
51:07
I mean, I love your products.
51:09
Like you're one of those people that is
51:11
genuinely putting it out there to make the world a better place, not to make a buck.
51:16
That's kind
51:16
of going back to what I was saying.
51:17
Like, I want us to all go back to the basics and quit trying
51:21
to tweak everything to make it cheaper and faster.
51:26
So I appreciate you too, very much.
51:30
Well, thank you, Amy.
51:31
And thank you all.
51:32
If you're enjoying this podcast, there are a few
51:35
easy ways to support us.
51:37
One, tell a family member or a friend, say, hey, you should check
51:40
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51:42
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51:53
And Amy's going to share where you can find her.
51:56
We're going to put that in the
51:57
show notes.
51:58
And of course, you can subscribe to the channel.
52:00
But Amy, where can people
52:01
buy your products and learn more about you and just connect?
52:05
Yeah.
52:06
So Living Beyond Medicine is a great channel to go to.
52:10
We're all about the fruit
52:12
soursop, which is grown in other countries.
52:14
It's hard to get in this country.
52:15
It's been
52:16
around for generations, like 700 years.
52:18
It does amazing things.
52:20
So we're able to source it and
52:21
get it in here into a supplement form and skincare form.
52:25
So go to livingbeyondmedicine.com.
52:28
I'm all
52:28
about living beyond medicine, trying to get off of any medications you're on, just living a more
52:34
natural, healthier life.
52:38
And as far as me personally, if you want to connect with me on Facebook or
52:42
Instagram or LinkedIn.
52:44
I manage all those myself.
52:47
So you can DM me at HeyAmyLacey on Instagram and
52:51
I will message you back.
52:53
I love connecting with people.
52:55
Yeah.
52:56
Well, thank you again, Amy.
52:57
How much?
52:57
Everyone be well.
52:58
Stay curious.
53:00
Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral.
53:04
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
53:09
You can find the
53:10
Show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com.
53:14
That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K dot com.
53:20
And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too.
53:25
Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.